TO PIE FOR W
First, he baked at the White House. Now he’s cooking for ‘Sweeney Todd’
HEN you’ve baked for two American presidents, as Bill Yosses has, you may not want to be associated with Mrs. Lovett, the diabolical pie maker of “Sweeney Todd.” She has a unique way of sourcing meat: Her shepherd’s pie has actual shepherd on top.
Turns out, the former White House pastry chef loves Stephen Sondheim’s macabre, 1979 musical. When the producers of a new revival asked if Yosses’ Perfect Pie bakery in Long Island City would supply the pies, he said yes.
“This is either gonna boost the business or kill it!” he tells The Post, laughing.
This immersive “Sweeney Todd” opened Wednesday at off-Broadway’s 130-seat Barrow Street Theatre, not that you’d recognize it: It’s been retooled to look, feel and smell like a Victorianera pie shop, complete with long communal tables. For an extra $22.50 per ticket, you can have your pie and eat it, too, washed down with beer, wine or soda, an hour before showtime.
You may not have much of an appetite afterward.
“I think this is last night’s audience,” a theatergoer quipped, poking through his pie.
When the show played London — in an actual bakery — it served only meat pies, usually made with lamb. Yosses’ pies contain chicken, because “we wanted it to be something that everyone could relate to.” He also offers a vegetarian version, a rich mélange featuring squash, shallots and mushrooms. His bakery turns out about 90 small, rectangular pies for each performance. Each is served on a tin plate with a schmear of mashed potatoes dribbled with herb sauce. “I’m not a meat-pie person, but if you’re gonna do it, do it,” says Brandon Rosenfield, 35, a “Sweeney Todd” fan who came in from St. Louis. He liked the pie, but left most of the crust. That, Yosses says, is something President Obama would never do.
“He did love pies,” says Yosses, who worked at the White House for eight years starting in 2007, where he served a dessert-loving George W. Bush. “I really think if you just served [Obama] the crust, he’d be OK.” Indeed, the 44th president dubbed him “the Crust Master.”
Yosses says the secret to a perfect crust is to refrain from overworking the dough — a mix of butter, flour, water and salt.
“I’m fond of lard,” he says, “but many people are turned off by it.”
Speaking of turned off: Yosses is thinking of tweaking his crust to give theatergoers a hint of what’s to come. Consider yourself warned.